Scandal – White Hat’s Off

Last season’s mid-season replacement returns for a Second Season with the trial of Lindsey Dwyer, who until now we’ve only known as Olivia Pope & Associates’ newest hire Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes). Quinn, or rather Lindsey, is accused of seven counts of murder in the bombing her former boyfriend and six other victims. Although all the evidence against Quinn is circumstantial, her account of events, and the fact that she ran and assumed a new identity (which was mysteriously provided), has even some of her own coworkers doubting her innocence.

Olivia (Kerry Washington) is also approached by a Congressman (Jackson Hurst) who discovers a bug in his office after a night of passion on his office desk with a junior partner (Pilar Holland) at a law firm. While Harrison (Columbus Short) attempts to block the tape from going public, in just two hours Abby (Darby Stanchfield) uncovers the identities of a dozen more women the Congressman has recently slept with which will only add fuel to the fire once the sex tape goes viral.

Prosecuting attorney David Rosen (Joshua Malina) pulls out all the stops in making his case against Quinn and seeking the death penalty. Olivia case to prove Quinn’s innocence isn’t helped when Quinn decides to fire her boss and the lawyer (Jillian Armenante) as she contemplates copping a plea to avoid the death penalty. Olivia manages to spin the Congresman’s troubles to his eventual benefit, but to save Quinn’s life she’s forced to play a card that makes an enemy out of potential friend that may have severe repercussions.

Things aren’t much more calm in the Oval Office which is mired in its own controversy as Mellie (Bellamy Young) uses the live interview announcement about the sex of their unborn child to force the President’s (Tony Goldwyn) hand in sending troops into East Sudan. Fitzgerald is able to find a way to take back control of the situation, but only, as Cyrus (Jeff Perry) has also done, by reaching out for the advice of Olivia.

Quite a bit is revealed in this episode including the truth about Quinn and where her mysterious new identity came from (which you should be able to guess long before the end of the episode). What isn’t clear is the reason for Henry Ian Cusick‘s departure from the show or the identity of the person who hired Olivia to look after Quinn, and who (if not someone connected to the White House) was on the other end of that mysterious phone call that gave Quinn a last-second reprieve?

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Man, this show has so many plot twists per episode, I always watch each episode twice just to catch all the little details. Olivia is such a great, entertaining character, she might be my favorite character on TV right now along with Fiona Gallagher from Shameless.

One thing I’ve also appreciated about this show (and all of Shonda Rhimes’ shows for that matter) is that they really pay attention to the music, and always seem to have great songs that add to the mood of the show, rather than distract. A great example in this episode was “Tied Knots” by The Album Leaf, which plays when Olivia watches the Kimberly Mitchell interview and talks to Fitz – I thought the song did a great job of heightening the moment there…again it’s the attention to detail that puts this show above others.